Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Critical Library, Viking) [Paperback]

James Joyce (Author), Robert Scholes (Editor), A. Walton Litz (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Critical Library, Viking | Publication Date: August 1, 1996

In these masterful stories, steeped in realism, Joyce creates an exacting portrait of his native city, showing how it reflects the general decline of Irish culture and civilization. Joyce compels attention by the power of its unique vision of the world, its controlling sense of the truths of human experience.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Rep Sub edition (August 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140247742
• ISBN-13: 978-0140247749
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, July 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Critical Library, Viking) (Paperback)

As Joyce's first mature work, Dubliners comes close to being a work of art. It does have its failings though, which this Viking Critical Edition helps the reader past. For instance, those unfamiliar with late 19th century Irish politics would be completely lost by a story like "Ivy Day in the Committee Room." The notations provided in the appendix, however, allow the reader to understand the references and to actually gain insight into the past.

For anyone looking for an introduction to Joyce, this edition of Dubliners is certainly the place to start. Those already familiar with his works may gain new insight by this edition. Either way, a must own.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, context-difficult, yet accessible collection, March 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Critical Library, Viking) (Paperback)

I suppose "Dubliners" as a collection of short stories is an excellent starting point for a newcomer to the literary world of James Joyce, for several reasons. The stories are written in plain English, a statement not to be under estimated, for Joyce is known for conscious, far-reaching experimentation within the English language, which ever since has inspired critics and theorists of literature, but at the same tame presented a common reader with a real challenge, ever so more overwhelming for the native speakers, not to mention those for whom English is a second, or third language. Joyce's most known works are as hard to read as they are to translate, this being the reason why "Finnegan's Wake" remains one famous book which is rarely translated, and even more seldom done so with any success whatsoever. "Dubliners" however comes nowhere close to the later-day experiments of this author, even if stories contained therein are thematically interconnected with "Ulysses". The prose is plain and captivating, often brutal, sometimes lyrical, but always dignified. Reading "Dubliners" is an adventure in itself, because if you happened to enter Joyce's world with the aforementioned volumes, you probably expected a similar experience. This book contains the very first literary attempts by this author, when although innovative in some respects, the stories fit well into the classical literary framework of the XIX century. Therefore, because of its accessibility, it's highly recommended to read "Dubliners" as your first volume by James Joyce. With this background, the ultimate task of dealing with "Ulysses", for it's a battle rather, than a casual reading, as Joyce himself projected, intended, and announced upon its publication - this task shall be much easier, and for once, even the reading of the aforementioned might prove successful and satisfying.

The stories contained in "Dubliners" are intriguing mainly because of their construction. Thematically interconnected, they constitute a coherent series of snapshots of Dublin, one of the largest cities in Europe at the time, and terribly under represented in literature. Characters appear as quickly as they fade away within the space of just a few pages, for you should know that the vast majority of stories in this volume are very short. So often the short stories are misunderstood, so often readers are genuinely perplexed. Unnecessarily so, because even if we agree that a short story should be brief and to the point, it's only too difficult to conceive a small pearl, which serves as a igniting spark of imagination, leaving the reader lost deeply in thoughts, genuinely affected by the content. It's not the case that everything should be explained, that the reader should be spoon-fed with logical presentation of events and causation. It's not the case that the ending of a short story should be definitive, so that there is nothing to subtract, nor anything to add when the last page is turned over. A good short story does not end with its last page, an observation I wish shall be helpful for you in your struggle with this literary form. It need not be a struggle, shouldn't be in fact, and if reading "Dubliners" will help you finding the answers on your own, so much the merrier.

Act after act in a play, we have a unique opportunity to see the real Dubliners, of all classes, occupations, with all different histories, lifetimes, passions, all types of human failure and success, all relative, built into the rich contextual background of Dublin, the city which should have been a capital of a country that also should have been but wasn't, at least not yet. These stories are not an assault on the storyline, as one might briskly attempt to categorize; their structure is classical, and yet Joyce contributed to the literary world by pushing the frontiers of the short story, at the same time retaining the compactness of the the contents despite of their enormous scope. It's not enough to read each story on its own, not in this volume. Although they are independent in the dimension of the storyline, the individual stories are essentially small jigsaw pieces of a puzzle; not in the sense of a greater, hidden meaning lurking there for a reader to discover, but in the sense of a multidimensional portrait of the city, the nation and its ailments, peculiarities and unique oddities. Much like Tyrmand's Varsaviana novels, "Dubliners" is an ode to Dublin, a city one loves so much to be sick of it, in Joyce's own words. There is a great deal to learn from James Joyce's "Dubliners", if you are so inclined, and the beautiful, accessible and yet context-difficult writing makes it a thoroughly enjoyable pleasure.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great stories, great ciriticism, July 12, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dubliners: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Critical Library, Viking) (Paperback)

When he was a young man, James Joyce abandoned his hometown of Dublin, and yet, he never wrote about any other place. He had also rejected Catholicism, and yet all his characters are dominated by it. DUBLINERS, Joyce's collection of short stories which set the standard for the genre, is filled with characters who come to terrible revelations (which he called "epiphanies") about how their lives had been scarred by the provincialism of Dublin, the divisiveness of its politics, and the oppression of religion. By extension, this is how Joyce percieved humanity at the dawn of modernism.

The stories range from the psychologically simple ("Counterparts" and "A Little Cloud") to the extraordinarily complex ("A Painful Case" and "The Dead"). But what is common throughout is the feel for Dublin just after the turn of the last century. The readers see the cobblestones, the chimneys, the trams and carts, the churches, and the street lamps. More importantly, the readers feel the tensions underlying the public smiles and infrequent bursts of confidence that the characters exhibit.

The extra value of this Viking Critical edition is, of course, the criticism. The valuable notes help make the understanding of the reading much easier. And the critical essays, each single one, provides a deeper understanding of how to put these stories in a larger frame.